Switzerland-based financial services firm UBS has launched its Future of Finance Challenge, an open competition for entrepreneurs and tech startups from around the world, offering winners cash prizes and acceleration worth over US$300,000.

The London-based money-transfer startup WorldRemit on Wednesday announced a new $100 million funding round, with a reported valuation of more than half a billion dollars. The round is led by the Silicon Valley venture capital firm TCV, whose previous investments include Facebook, Spotify, and Netflix.

Comerica Bank and RocketSpace announced today the launch of a business pitch contest focused on financial technology for the wearables market. Comerica Bank is the presenting sponsor, providing the full prize amount of $50,000 for the winning pitch.

Mobile banking usage is set to grow exponentially. To respond, banks must overcome structural challenges, reconciling consumers’ appetite for ease of use with the desire for greater security. Boldness will be required, with the consumer being the beneficiary.

The head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has called for a balanced approach to regulation governing financial technology development in the United States, citing bitcoin as one such example.

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It's been about two decades since a financial company really changed the world. Inc. 500 entrepreneurs are leading a pack of disrupters, raised in the shadow of PayPal, who will change your business relationship to money forever.

Some of the earliest adopters of the digital currency Bitcoin were criminals, who have found it invaluable in online marketplaces for contraband and as payment extorted through lucrative “ransomware” that holds personal data hostage. A new Bitcoin-inspired technology that some investors believe will be much more useful and powerful may be set to unlock a new wave of criminal innovation.

Silicon Valley is taking on Wall Street right where it lives: in financial services that big banks either have ditched or haven't latched onto yet.

Tech-focused venture capital firms poured some $12.2 billion into financial services start-ups in 2014, more than triple the amount in 2013, according to numbers from Accenture and CB Insights that Wall Street brokerage Convergex cited in a note Monday.